Zoe 17-6

Discussion (6) ¬

So, nothing will change because of what happened? She ended up in a basement with a creepy old dude and had the scare of her life, and she and Damien are going to brush it aside?

I have nothing against a promiscuous girl and all, hell I tend to like that kind of character, but this is the kind of thing that makes people reconsider their actions.

I’ve been reading this particular version of the comic since Arc two and I have to wonder. Is Zoe ever going to learn about consequences? I have nothing against characters that fuck around, but she gives it away too easily, to people like, say, that creepy old guy that almost raped her.

I don’t know if the spoiler you gave some time ago for a patreon VIP post (with the other guy) is going to affect this story, or it is an alternate branch or something. But that can’t be the first consequence that she ever faces. Or even if she is, I don’t think it would change her that much, since Damien is going to take care of it.

Zoe is going to turn out to be a real plain character if she doesn’t ever learn to slow down, and wait until after someone says “hello” to open her legs. Which would be a shame, I really like the designs in this comic.

Speaking of design… Damien’s crown looks backwards in that last panel. But anyways, decent page as always.

I sort-of agree with you on Zoe’s behavior. But, in fairness, she isn’t going to change overnight. It’s only been minutes. A psychological trauma takes time to manifest. I’ve been through some really hairy near-death accidents in my life. I shrugged them off at the time, but months and years later the deeper impacts disturb my dreams and inhibit me in uncontrollable ways. A week or a month from now, Zoe will have a nightmare or two and it will affect her behavior more directly & visibly. In a sense, right now she’s in shock and headed into denial. As she processes just how much danger she was in, debris will begin to surface.

Quick example: I took a spill off a ladder while working construction. I was on the second floor of a warehouse and fell through where a wall hadn’t been installed yet. About 40 feet straight down onto a concrete pad, landed on top of the ladder and the heavy drill I was using. Stabbed myself through the thigh with a 15″ drill bit, cracked my shin on the metal ladder, split the skin & flesh open to the bone, lost several teeth, opened my eye socket to the skull. Took a plastic surgeon over 150 stitches to put that back together. A dozen other “minor” injuries and a full day in the hospital peeing through a catheter to make sure I wasn’t bleeding internally. Fun times.

I never worried about heights. Used to do minor mountain climbing, climbed trees 50 or 80 feet up with a chainsaw to take them down pieces at a time. Walk rooflines a couple hundred feet off the ground swinging hammers and power tools, rarely thought twice about it. Went right back to that lifestyle a week later and didn’t think much about it.

Years later, like about 10, I started having dreams of my mouth filled with broken teeth, falling from absurd heights and hitting the ground. I still climb up ladders and work on rooftops, but I avoid it as much as possible these days. When I do get more than about 15 feet off the ground, it takes a lot of willpower to remain calm. I climb ladders very slowly and cautiously, checking every grip and step two or tree times over. Gave up all mountain climbing, even the easy slopes. I see people fall in movies and I feel the impact, feel the bones break and teeth shatter.

I rarely even thought about falling for years, now it can be an overwhelming … let’s say concern rather than fear. I can still function, I’m not outright paralyzed with with terror, but I can get very obsessive over safety when I have to do something at height.

The only thing I can still do is that I always liked diving into water from height. I at least still have that because I have enormous control over that. But, I don’t do any of the insane cliff-diving from 50 or 60 feet like I used to. About 20 or 25 feet is my limit anymore, and usually about 15 feet makes me think about it. A lot.

Anyway. Give it time. Zoe is still burning off adrenaline. When she wakes up in the middle of a dark, quiet night next week with no distractions, that will be the tell.

But, not to be a hypocrite or anything. If I was sitting in Damian’s place at the moment, that little tidbit would set me off, too. I’d probably already be thinking 3-way by the time she finished saying the word “mom.”

Surprised he could make a coherent sentence in the last panel. I would have thought it would have been more like:

“You … uhhh … slept … mphh… with… ohhh… your… ahhh… mother?”

But I guess it would have been hard to fit all that inside a speech bubble.

It’s hard to tell while he’s spurting whether he’s shocked, disgusted, or intrigued by her confession (or a combination of them). Once he deflates and has some blood back in his (big) head he can process those thoughts. But now that she’s confessed that tidbit there’s no way he can ever look at her (or her Mom) quite the same way again.

If that’s one of her big items off her checklist, does he want to know what else she’s been up to (banging a couple of door-to-door missionaries or her uncle)? Does he dare ask after this and how much will she share?